The Dragon, the Monkey, Saint Joan, and the Queen
by Blue-Inked Frost
Summary: Layla is playing the role of legendary soldier-saint Jeanne d'Arc when Sora joins her show. New changes and challenges come to Sora and Layla as they strive to understand Fool's divinations. Saints and queens and dragons and monkeys all must come together by the end of the story! Sora/Layla femslash.
1. Chapter 1

_Summary_: Layla is playing the role of legendary soldier-saint Jeanne d'Arc when Sora joins her show. New changes and challenges come to Sora and Layla as they strive to understand Fool's divinations. Saints and queens and dragons and monkeys all must come together by the end of the story! Sora/Layla femslash.

Written Yuletide 2013 for mmmdraco.

—

It began with a kiss.

The stage was dark, but Layla could sense the fire behind Sora's eyes. She would have heard a pin drop in the susurrating silence, between the whispers of a breeze that rustled between the empty seats like a ghost of music and applause. Sora was smiling, and flung herself into Layla's arms as lightly and naturally as a bird took flight. She was a bird—since Layla had known her she had always flown.

_I have always flown with you, Sora._

Sora laughed and cried at the same time, between kisses. "It was too long before this...did I waste a lot of time?"

"Neither of us wasted time." Layla touched the soft, sweet skin of her partner's cheek. _Sora._ "This is where we begin."

—

Before it began...

The Spirit of the Stage, the Fool, gazed into the stars.

"More divination?" his friend Sora asked of him. "But I thought that things were going well. The Stage is happy, and I know where my friends and I are going!"

"Layla is born in the Japanese year of the dragon," Fool said. "She is noble, sensitive, and brave. The dragon is right to have high standards. But the dragon can also become trapped by their own pride."

"Layla is amazing," Sora said, as fiercely as if she breathed fire like a European dragon herself, "and I cannot wait to be by her side again!"

—

"Write to us, Sora!" Rosetta kissed her heartily on each cheek. May Wong rushed up beside them.

"CALL US WHEN YOU GET THERE! KNOWING YOU, SORA, YOU'LL START DOING CIRCUS ROUTINES IN THE AIRPORT AND FORGET ABOUT THE PLANE!" May yelled.

"It feels so strange to do a performance without you," Rosetta said.

"But I know that Mia's Coppélia will be amazing with you," Sora said. May's and Rosetta's partnership made them true stars of the Kaleido Stage and this performance was the right way for them to shine brightly in the chief roles. And she would never really be without her beloved friends for any length of time.

"Take lots of notes," Mia said, "and pass on our messages..." The breeze rushed through Mia's red pigtails as she stood with her hand linked in Anna's. Over the past year, Sora's two first friends at the Stage had begun to date each other.

"ESPECIALLY MINE!" May added.

"And," Anna said, waggling her eyebrows, "bring us presents! I'd like to eat a really big apple."

Sora's friends were fresh in her heart as the plane lifted from Cape Mery: May, Rosetta, Ken, Anna, Mia, Marion, Jonathan, Leon, Yuri, Sarah, Kalos, Mr Kenneth, and of course all the new recruits she was starting to get to know—she knew that Myesha the ribbon dancer would be amazing in the new performance, and the stagehand Alvaro had amazing ideas for the set pieces, and she missed them already— She was looking forward to watching the new amazing show.

_Layla. I'm coming to you._

And Layla's image took Sora's thoughts. Each one of Layla's performances more amazing than the last—the Golden Phoenix, the Arabian Nights, the Mystical Act, the Broadway Phoenix, her latest plays—and more amazing beyond that was Layla herself. Any time they were close to each other they began to know their dreams. Even blindfolded Sora would sense Layla's presence and the next move to make to create a performance with her. When Layla last visited Kalos, Sora walked to the harbour with her and they sat for hours in a beachside cafe, talking about everything they had ever shared with each other.

_I want you to heat up the stage, Sora._

Sora had not yet had time to read the script for Layla's newest show. She'd jump from any trapeze and know that Layla would be there waiting to catch her. Improvisation when she knew the performers and audience was one of Sora's talents. But here she was on the plane, and she must keep up with Layla. With determination, Sora wrinkled her nose and bent herself over the blue playscript...

—

"The Monkey," Fool said. "Sora, you were born in the Year of the Monkey...a very good year for a Fool. It is also a good year for people who need to take lots of showers. No, no need to flick me like that! You are inventive, original, agile, able to become skilful, and long-lived."

Sora looked at him. "Then what does that mean for this play, Fool? How can I give a good performance with Layla? Or do you only mean that I act like a monkey?"

"Frequently," Fool said, and smirked.

"Fool...!"

Sora reached forward to grasp him, but instead her fingers snatched at a steward's tie. She apologised profusely as the poor man started to choke.

—

Sora was absorbed in Cathy Taymour's play. _Jeanne_, it was called, as if Cathy expected the readers to already know who Jeanne was...and when Sora read the first scene, she understood that the character explained it all.

Jeanne was a maiden from a small quiet town who loved God and her country more than anything else and heard voices in the air. She rode out to save France with a banner and a sword, and risked her life to rescue her people.

_It will be amazing!_ Sora thought. She imagined the circus acts. Jeanne rode to war but refused to kill. Jeanne prayed to the airy voices that allowed her to be captured and betrayed by her own king, and held to her faith until death. Jeanne would be purity, soaring above the stage like a maiden of fire. Sora imagined Layla's phoenix as Jeanne for a beginning, and then changed around the action lines in her head so that it would be different.

"My voices do not deceive me, I..."

And perhaps, Sora thought, Jeanne was also blind because she saw nothing but the ideals that compelled her.

—

"Sora." Expression flashed across Layla's face like sunlight on water, her golden hair catching the light. She was calm and elegant like always, her hairstyle sheared into a stylish pageboy. Sora rushed to her very inelegantly—like a monkey, perhaps, she thought. "I'm glad to see you," Layla said.

"It's amazing to see you!" Sora babbled. Layla didn't seem to mind the close hug Sora gave her. "Let's heat up the stage together again. Everything from Kaleido Stage is amazing too at the moment—I will tell you all the news and you tell me yours—and it's especially amazing to be with you. I did not know I missed you so much until now!"

"It's been seven months and two weeks," Layla said, always precise. "You will stay with me again, unless Kalos has made other arrangements...? Well, then, Macquarie will take your trunk. You must want to freshen up after your trip."

Sora felt her cheeks were blushing a flaming red. She must smell amazingly horrible! How could she have thoughtlessly rushed up to Layla in this state? "Yes," she said, and sat quietly in the back of Layla's limousine.

—

"If I am in the grace of God, may he keep me there; if I am not, may he place me there," Jeanne d'Arc defended herself, stepping through the traps of her opponents.

Her judges wished to burn her as an unbeliever but she stood for her faith. She begged for a cross at the last and a friendly soldier from the other side gave her a pair of sticks to hold together.

"Render to the Maid who is sent by God the keys of the towns you have taken! King Charles shall be crowned in France, for God has willed it so!" Jeanne raised her white standard and all the soldiers around her cheered.

"How dare you torture a helpless man!" Jeanne cried, and held a dying prisoner on the enemy's side in her lap. She gave him water but he was dead, and countless others in the field were also dead men.

"A woman will doom France and a woman will save France," cried a voice that Sora could not tell to be either male or female. "One woman on one side of the coin from the other, a saint and a queen, their destinies intertwined forever." It was a wailing strange voice from a hundred miles away, and Sora thought that Fool was another voice going around and around in her head and telling her that that he knew her future already and that the future could be changed and that all the voices were real and true and must not be ignored if she wanted to save everyone—

Sora shook her head and doused her face with cold water to wake up properly. Bizarre scenes still danced in her mind: Cathy had written in the play that she wasn't going to limit herself to a historical setting, but instead they were going to create a magical, surreal image from all of time. About a girl who heard voices in her head...

"Sora, lead an army to become the Queen of America," Fool said. She laughed uneasily. "The Spirit of the Stage is not about conquering. But it can be about competition," he said.

_I wonder if Jeanne really heard voices? I hear voices and so does Layla!_ Sora thought. _The Maid was not insane, because the notes at the end of the play say that she really achieved the things she announced._ She rushed to get ready for Layla and make an amazing show.

—

"So I see you once more. The Stage is not done with me," Layla said to Fool. She leapt elegantly from her practice beam.

"I'm here with Sora," Fool answered. "Either you will succeed brilliantly, or fail completely."

"That should always be true," Layla said. "Glory cannot exist without risk."

Fool gave a petulant sigh. "There is more under heaven and earth than even I can know, Horatio. I see a vast pit of disaster awaiting you, and cannot see quite what it is."

"Do you truly think that makes me afraid?" Layla said. She drew her perfect composure around her like an expensive gown, and even as the Spirit of the Stage—who had seen ten thousand and uncountably more stars—Fool had to respect her poise.

—

The training stage was set with asymmetrical bars and trapezes, clustered as if tongues of flame licked the area. Sora did not know anyone here beside Layla and Macquarie. She'd heard that Julie and Charlotte had contracts to dance in a touring circus this summer. Many people were already here but she could not see Layla yet.

"Sora Naegino?" a young black man with a very handsome face asked her. He smiled like a ray of melting sunlight. "It is you, isn't it? I've never seen anything like your performance in the Lady Murasaki show last year! And I was in the audience for your Phoenix. Make the autograph out to Eugene, Eugene Jameson..."

He seemed happy. Sora returned his smile. Then there were more voices and people around her, welcoming her to this show—she wished she was better at catching every name. "Hello, Clarrie, hello, Farnie...Farnice, sorry! It's amazing to meet you all!" Sora was still talking to the group when a sudden hush fell over them all. She stopped halfway through a sentence, wondering what the matter was.

An old woman with a knotted ebony cane had tapped it on the ground, from the other side of the room where she sat on one of a small cluster of chairs. A light sparkled in her deepset beetle-black eyes. She said: "Sora, waste no more time. Be ready."

Sora took her place on the training set, her heart full of the fire of Cathy's play. And now she saw Layla here at last. Sora took flight, hoping to bring the look of wondrous amazement to Layla's eyes, that look she knew from the Mystical Act and the Act of the Angel. Sora's goal was to give the audience an amazing show!

Layla joined her. Sora saw what she was doing and flew to meet her. They were fighting like they had done in their first play together, the Arabian Nights and the pirate and the urchin's duel on a burning boat.

_Burning... Fire fuels this play, and then ends it in great tragedy!_ Sora thought. She rose in the air as if she flew on tongues of flame. She lost herself in Layla's shining blue eyes before her.

_If Jeanne...wanted to save the ones she loved!_

Sora balanced like a soldier on the highest point in the set. She'd leapt high enough for her fingertips to brush the ceiling, searching for something beyond.

She looked at Layla then, and what she saw made her heart rise.

"Read for us," the old woman with the cane said. She had walked to stand close to them and held a script in her left hand. _She looks like Mr Kenneth_, Sora thought, although it wasn't a physical resemblance—it was something about her voice and her stance. "Sora, get down from there.

"Kalos was correct. You have muscles," the woman added. She'd raised her cane slightly and Sora jumped, wondering if she was going to be hit over the back of her calves. "Page twelve, fourth line, Jeanne."

"I do not know the least of riding a horse or tilting with a lance. How can I go to the Dauphin and lead men to battle? But my land cries for mercy. If it is the will of God I must go." Sora sorted the image in her head: saint or human girl? Jeanne had not yet fallen, she was at the beginning with her voices. In the beginning Jeanne was guided by hope and ideals, the way when Sora once came with her parents to see Alice in Wonderland at the Kaleido Stage. "Give me a horse, give me men's garb, and I'll go to the Dauphin."

"If I am to fall or to die or be wounded today I know no more than any other soldier." Jeanne knew what she risked, but her voices were with her. The will to save what she loved drove her much more than any fear, Sora thought. "I fear nothing but treachery. We march at dawn to free our capital!"

"Turn forward," the woman advised.

Sora knew that this was now the last section—the final act, when Jeanne was betrayed from within and it seemed as if her voices had left her, or stopped helping her. "The only way to be free is to try. Even captured and alone—I am not alone." And then Jeanne leapt from a sixty-foot tower to try and escape, because she was told that the enemy soldiers were even killing children. She fell—Sora remembered Layla and her shoulder, remembered Leon reaching for a trapeze bar that was not there. There was bewilderment in the words Cathy had written, Jeanne's voices uncertain if they were the truth or not...

"I do not want to die in the fire. I do not want to feel flame licking my feet and face. But if my country has a martyr to fight for... God! Messire, please grant me your grace."

Jeanne stared at something beyond herself, a beautiful dream she strove for, her eyes seeking through the dark and her body tensed as if she would fly away the next moment.

"My voices say that in three months I will be free, but they do not explain how," Jeanne said, trying her best to give trust to the heaven she hoped for.

"Tramp, tramp," Jeanne whispered, "after my death they will come. Within seven years my country will win a great victory." There was a cross, Jeanne was looking at a simple wooden cross made from two splinters placed together. "Jesus."

Sora had once changed the Little Mermaid's story to have a happy ending, but Jeanne died in fire because it was history. Although Sora knew that Cathy didn't enjoy keeping only to history... She would think about it later. She was finished reading the last lines of Cathy's amazing writing. She looked into Layla's eyes again, coming back to be Sora again rather than part of Cathy's play, Layla's amazing eyes drawn to the performance.

"Idealism," the woman with the stick said. "Innocence." She gave a quick, sharp look to the person to her right, a middle-aged African-American woman with polished brown hair like the curls of a bronze statue. "Hortensia?" Sora did not think it was, precisely, a question.

"We searched for a star," Hortensia said. "The part is a saint, for a unique actor. A core of fire and a youthful heart, energetic, with enough courage and determination..."

Layla looked at Sora. "Mrs Karunungan is the primary sponsor," she said. "Hortensia Virgil is one of the business associates, and Louise de Conte is a historical consultant."

"A miraculous dreamer," the pale woman on Hortensia's left said. She looked as if her dress was for a fashion show or a harlequin costume, all black and white in clean, clear squares. "Purity and joy, matchless and unexampled." Her dark eyes raked Sora's face. "We have not been introduced, Miss Naegino. I am Madame de Conte."

Their conversation was odd and cryptic. Sora flew down to stand beside Layla, where she felt she belonged.

"Eyfridur," the first woman said, speaking to a blonde European woman who looked like either a Viking or a Valkyrie with her hawklike face and loose hair, "do you agree with my decision?"

"She is the director," Layla told Sora softly. "Eyfridur Gudrun."

"This is exactly what we want," Eyfridur said. "Sora, you will play the role of Jeanne."

—


	2. Chapter 2

_This isn't right! Layla is playing Jeanne!_ Sora raised her hands weakly in front of herself. This was all wrong! She came to help Layla, not steal her role! Then Layla herself had said, "Take it, Sora," but in a cold voice that meant something was wrong. Of course something was wrong! Then Layla had left the training room. Sora did not know where she was now.

"You stabbed her in the back," Fool told her cheerfully, "your friend invited you to heat up the stage and you stole her part."

"Stop it, Fool!"

"I am only saying what you think." He spun in a circle around Sora's head. "Cathy Taymour was born in the year of the Tiger. She is constructively selfish, stubborn, courageous, and a deep thinker...and she has realised that the Jeanne she wrote is more like Sora than like Layla. Do you wish Cathy's play to be less glorious than it should be?"

Sora did a frustrated series of handsprings across the carpet. "I do not know, Fool! I'm going for a walk—"

She was wandering vaguely in circles, either subconsciously or consciously looking for Layla. There was Layla's dressing room, the door opened by a crack, and Sora's feet walked toward it. But there were voices already in there, a man's voice and Layla's.

_Mr Hamilton_, Sora remembered. The pale middle-aged man with the harsh, pencil-thin moustache, extremely wealthy and always busy; he cared deeply about his daughter when he was able to show it.

"I warned you, Layla," he said. "You will be replaced by new young stars. I picked that girl out years ago. Then you commit career suicide by inviting her to steal your role!"

Layla said something that Sora could not hear.

"If you like I'll take you away from this travesty," Mr Hamilton said. "There's a casting call for Leonides' latest movie. Though you're aging out of the business, you can get by a little longer in films..."

_Aging out?_ Sora was horrified and angry. Layla was not very much older than she was, and Sora was still an age where people went to college...but she did not think that the exact age was the point...

_I am a little older than Jeanne was when she died._

And suddenly Sora thought of when she would be as ancient as Layla's father—he'd always seemed much older than her own father, either of them. Your body slowed as you became older and you couldn't do the same stunts any more, but she'd always thought of Sarah and Kalos as quite old and Sarah was still singing. She and Layla would find performances for then.

Then quickly Sora's mind turned to more—she and Layla shrivelled white-haired old women at ninety with long yellow fingernails, but still doing something, standing to give people in an audience something they wanted to see and hear. For a moment, a small part of Sora wondered that her heart should instinctively place Layla always with her in her imaginings of the future.

_Everyone is mortal, everyone is vulnerable in their body, but their soul and heart..._

Then there was Alice—the original Alice in Wonderland, her real name Donna Walker. She inspired Sora to join Kaleido Stage, when Sora came to the show with her first parents. She was the same star who inspired Layla. Sora met her a long time later when she was training a seeing eye dog called Love. Donna Walker grew older and she was beautifully happy.

It wasn't something to be afraid of, and for a moment Sora had the feeling she stood on the cusp of a shining realisation beyond.

Layla's father said something, and she answered him back in a voice that sounded like a polar bear's teeth looked, and then Layla opened the door and came face to face with Sora outside.

She didn't have to say anything. Sora had eavesdropped, and she was sorry for eavesdropping, sorry for it all. She watched Layla go.

Mr Hamilton walked out a moment later. He looked at her.

"Don't take it personally," he said. He reached into his jacket pocket for a business card. "When this play needs additional sponsors, call this number and we'll talk about what you can do for Hamilton Hotels."

Sora shook her head. She watched him go, then started to run. She caught up with Mr Hamilton as he reached his chauffeur and car.

"You're wrong," she said, "about Layla, Layla will never be worn out, not in my eyes. She will always be amazing, no matter how old we grow together—"

"Miss Naegino," Mr Hamilton said sharply, his voice as clipped as the tight neatness of his moustache, "do you think that I'm not a busy man? Excuse me." The impassive-faced chauffeur closed the car door.

Sora walked away, the pain growing in her heart all the while, and tears building behind her eyes.

—

"This time," Kalos said from the screen of the video phone, "I'm not going to say that you must accept the role or never return to Kaleido Stage. It's entirely up to you, Sora."

She shut off the message and stretched into a backwards cat on the bed. She held the pose with the rocking of the mattress, taking in a deep breath. A flip later and she stood balanced on one leg, touching the ceiling with the toes of the other. The room's air currents were heavy and too warm.

"No decision is a decision," Fool announced.

"I know that!" Sora shook her head wildly. She moved her leg into an arabesque, then jumped backward to the floor. _Surely Layla is—I have betrayed her without meaning to!_ "The only thing that Jeanne feared was treachery and she was right."

"Sounds like you know the play already," Fool muttered, but by then Sora was away to the practice rooms.

—

Layla balanced between her parallel beams. She swung herself up into a one-handed handstand in a single fluid motion, then somersaulted into her trapeze bars.

_Old. Fired. Unable to perform._ She rose into the air in a half-Angel position. At that time, Layla competed with Sora to help bring the full Angel to the Kaleido Stage.

_In the first days after we met I saw you as a pursuing threat, Sora._

The girl thrust herself into everything. She was impulsive and audacious. In the beginning Layla saw Sora as nothing but a nuisance, and then she began to see a fire in her. Her father reminded her that here was a potential successor, but Layla found a partner. Together they conquered the Mystical Act and flew a hundred feet above the ground.

Then Sora would not compete to win better parts. That caused their last great quarrel: when Sora refused to descend to the level necessary to win the Circus Festival and follow in Layla's exact footsteps. Instead, Sora traced her own path to become the Kaleido Star. She became the Angel and Layla, for a time, her Devil.

_For an Angel cannot be raised without a Devil..._

Layla brought her legs up and over a hoop, balancing herself steadily atop it. The old injury in her right arm shook by a fraction, but her left was perfectly steady. She and Sora had grown and changed since the night of the Mystical Act, where they united all their dreams in the air together. She closed her eyes, knowing all her equipment by touch, and landed on the next bar.

When she opened them, she blinked once.

"Fool. It seems I've accomplished your prediction." The theatrical doll hovered before her eyes. _The first time I saw him, perched upon Sora's shoulder..._ "Will you fade, since I have failed?"

"It's always unwise to trip over the toes of a dragon with injured pride," Fool said. "Will you leave the theatre?"

"Perhaps. If I take a role in a film then I will have to." Layla lowered her body, carefully stretching. "Will you fade at last if I do, Fool?"

"Is it foolish to cherish an impossible dream, or more foolish to leave it behind in the dust?" the Spirit of the Stage asked. He did not seem to expect an answer, as he became clouded and vanished from Layla's view. She swung herself up into a split handstand on the trapeze bar.

Then her right shoulder gave way, and she plummeted down with a soft cry.

—

The shimmering silver ball almost broke as it slipped past her! Sora windmilled backward as she struggled to catch it in time. Then she flicked it back to the juggler, who laughed and flung her another. Catching it in a one-legged twirl, she laughed when she heard laughter. She played with Hans Ueda, who was a very skilled juggler indeed; a former circus clown who had worked in a lot of different shows—including one stint with the Theatrical Camp and Sora's other friend Dio. Clarrie laughed behind them.

Sora had now met Clarrie properly, an Italian character actor with an india-rubber face who reminded her of Anna. Then there was stuntman August Huang, who said that he'd competed with May Wong back in her ice skating days and was a family friend; Eugene, the good-looking tap dancer who was to play the Dauphin; and many others.

When Sora was still in school in Japan and dreaming of the Kaleido Stage, every year she'd get a copy of the audition results and read the names of the amazing new entrants and imagine what it would be like to become friends with them. She liked to be part of a crowd and listen to everyone else's amazing ideas.

"When I was a servant girl in Layla Hamilton's Salome in Vegas," the girl called Farnice said, "she wasn't like you. I thought that you would be the same, since you are both Kaleido Stars. But it's fun—you _talk_ to people!" Farnice reminded Sora of Mia, a little; she had the same quickness and mongoose-like eager eyes, her frizzy red hair pulled back in beaded braids. "The big star who talks to the little people!"

Sora felt herself flush beetroot-coloured. "No, no! I am not above anyone! I see everyone do amazing things at the Kaleido Stage. That is why I perform!"

Farnice laughed. "So it is just Miss Layla, then! Was she this intimidating when she was at Kaleido Stage? The golden ice maiden without a word to say except to tell people they're doing it wrong."

"No!" Sora said fiercely. Farnice did not know Layla properly, that was the difference! "Layla is a person with a kind heart. You don't know how much she encouraged me, how much she gave when she was my partner!" Sora had too many memories to count: their swords at night above the roaring sea and then the stage pirate ship in flames, the training for the Mystical Act and all the pain that Layla put herself through, Layla coming to save her Swan Lake performance twice, everything else since then and before. And then there were the other sides to Layla's personality: when she spoke of her father always being too busy to come and see her plays, when Layla remembered her past as a little girl who always cried, when she revealed that she was starving herself and risking injury for the Mystical Act. "Layla is not that kind of person."

"I guess," Farnice said, "Layla's the kind of person who only a few get to know. I didn't mean there was anything wrong with that." She shrugged.

Sora wished Layla—that she hadn't betrayed Layla, that Layla was here. Layla always inspired people to give an amazing performance, such as May. "She is an amazing inspiration."

"Then why is she sulking?" Farnice said. "Look, I'm sorry—let's talk of other things. I guess my style is closer to yours. So did you hear the joke about which circus performers can see in the dark? Acro-bats can. When the trapeze artist's accountant asked her what her net worth was, she said, Every penny! Did you hear about the trapeze artist who caught his wife in the act?"

Sora found herself laughing at Farnice's jokes, though inside she was wondering.

_Yes, I am different from Layla_, she thought. She had never realised so clearly before that her dream of being a Kaleido Star followed a different path. Layla was a distant amazing star to the supporting performers, but Sora liked to be surrounded by many friends and laughter. _And because of our differences we became partners, who each gave something new and amazing to each other._

_Please, Layla, forgive me..._

—

Layla was crying uncontrollably into her green dress. The white rabbit had meant everything in the world for her, and now the Tweedledum figure had given the last toy to the last child and gone away. She didn't have a white rabbit. Her mother hugged her.

This was her outing with both her parents to the Kaleido Stage, where Alice in Wonderland was the most wonderful thing in the world. Layla was utterly captivated by the way that Alice could fly through the air. But words couldn't explain the tears she shed that there was no white rabbit left for her to hold in her arms, something that would make Alice in Wonderland last forever...

Layla was clutching the toy in her bed. No, it was a white pillow. She was lying on the floor.

"Macquarie, get me my white rabbit," Layla said firmly though in a muffled tone. Her maid was bending over her with a look of great concern.

"Now, Miss Layla?" Macquarie looked uncertain. The white rabbit was far away at the moment, Layla remembered. She had placed all of her old favourite objects in storage on the day she had finished her schooling and auditioned for the Kaleido Stage. "I think that old thing is..."

"Don't worry about it," Layla said. She found that she could sit up. "Tweedledum couldn't give me a rabbit and I cried, but I know where my rabbit is now." Macquarie knew it too. Once she had sewn the white rabbit's ear back on for Layla, and packed it away herself.

"You fell and you're hurt, miss. Do you have a concussion?" Macquarie said. "I thought that you were lucky not to be badly hurt, but if you feel confused, I'll call an ambulance just this second. I think I should to be sure!"

"You've always worried too much about me." Layla got to her feet. She carefully checked her right shoulder; though it had given way when she fell, she seemed not to have fallen on it. She had managed to slip out of her net and land on her left side. "If you like, Macquarie, we'll check in with the first aid staff. Then I think I will practice some more."

"Have you decided...?" Macquarie said, knowing what had happened. "If you want I will hand in my resignation too! Sora is likeable enough, but these people have no excuse to treat you this way!"

Layla raised a hand. They were both silent on their way to practice.

—


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N:_ Thank you for the Guest review, neko-rin!

—

Sora relaxed into the elastic rope holding her under both arms. Eyfridur was as harsh a director as Kalos could be! This was a good thing, of course, even when it hurt. She would run through this part of the show again—portraying Jeanne in a pitched battle, raising her banner above the bloody tides. A battle was brutal and cruel even when you heard voices from God.

"Give it your best, Sora," Cathy called. "Get back into the part!"

It was a theatrical fight, all metaphor and terrible death. And above it there was a girl bright as a star from heaven, except that she'd been really real and really true. Cathy had made Sora read some of Jeanne's own words, written down by scribes back then who scribbled in the margins when she said something they found magnificent. Even back in old times people were the same and scrawled or drew sketches like Anna always did on the sides of her scripts.

Eyfridur's attention had turned to the backup dancers. She counted them—Sora swallowed. Macquarie wasn't there. Did that mean she had left with Layla to go and do a film?

"Sora, this is your cue!" Cathy yelled. Sora clambered upwards.

_Jeanne was blind about some things, left behind the feelings of her family and other things, because she had a mission from her voices and saw only her one shining goal..._

Cathy was looking at her. "You're capturing the feelings of Jeanne, Sora. Keep it up."

_Layla?_ Sora wanted to ask her with her eyes, but Cathy didn't seem to read her. This was Cathy's biggest play yet—a lot of people, a lot of fantastical-looking scenery being painted at this very moment, stunts, specialised costumes. Nobody who didn't know Cathy Taylor would have guessed that she was nervous or ever could be, but she interjected much more than usual and sipped something from a hip flask every so often. Her hair bristled like the claws of an ambitious tiger.

_I do not need to act like Fool!_ Sora told herself, and went back to the play.

—

"Going to get a camera focused on you here, Sora," Cathy said. "Jeanne's remembering her childhood from prison. So think back to something happy when you were young. It's called method acting, Eyfridur. Let her do it."

_The happy memory I have is when my first parents took me to the Kaleido Stage!_ Sora thought._ After that is Yume's birth of course, and holidays with my family, but it is best to go all the way back._

Sora remembered it as the clearest day of her childhood, a day of smiles. She smelt sawdust and the oiled metal poles holding up the tent. There was Donna Walker's amazing Alice in Wonderland, somersaulting through a beautiful magical flower that opened for her and vanished in a twinkling. At intermission there was funny Tweedledum, a big red plump man who made her laugh even though she didn't know a word that he was saying. He threw white rabbits to the children for them to keep, their very own white rabbit to take home. Sora remembered holding one, but she hadn't taken it away with her. She was happier because she gave... There was magic in the show and that was the time of her happiness.

And now, if she was sitting in a damp dark prison held by her enemies and knowing those happy days could never return, wondering whether she could still hold faith in her dreams, that is how she would look...

"It's fine, Sora," Eyfridur said.

"Jeanne despairs," Sora said. "She thinks she's lost her dream and she's not sure her voices are real any more, and that's why she confesses when they threaten to burn her then and there. She becomes a human instead of a saint."

Eyfridur gave her a sharp look. "Except to make this play a good play, you emote exactly what you're told to emote at the exact time you're supposed to emote it. Go from line eighty-three again."

—

Sora stood near the break table with the other people in the play. Eugene, who was playing the Dauphin, brought her an extra glass of soda. She smiled her thanks.

"I like your Dauphin in the third scene, Eugene!" she said. "He is very uncertain and unconfident. He could be easy to play as a villain, since he betrays Jeanne, but he is human with you and that means he is more interesting. There is hope until...well, you know what I mean! And he is very young and not good at running an entire country."

Jeanne thought that she must follow the Dauphin to her death. One of her last lines—that Cathy said she copied out of the real Jeanne's words—was that all the bad things she had done were her fault and should never be blamed on the Dauphin or on anyone else. But Jeanne also understood that her Dauphin was human and weak, and she thought that he had a good heart. Everyone who sought to delight an audience had an angel's heart!

Eugene smiled, in a way that seemed to make everyone around notice how amazingly handsome he was. "This is my third role that's not tap dancing," he said. "I love doing serious drama. I had acting tutors all the way through high school, and it looks like that paid off." Sora guessed that maybe he had not left high school very long ago. "Do you want to come out for coffee tomorrow? I figured I'd ask you, a few others from the show—there's this gorgeous Italian place, where they have every kind of tea and coffee."

"Green tea?" Sora asked. She'd never gotten a taste for coffee's bitterness. "I also like camomile!" she added, because she did like that kind too and didn't want to be difficult. Eugene fluttered his eyelashes at her. He had unusually nice eyelashes.

"Even Gyokuro green tea, if you'd like. My treat."

—

Fool floated before Sora's head, distracting her from the many people around her. "The Dauphin. The real Dauphin was born in the year of the Sheep, Sora. The same year in the cycle as your friend Mia. Sheep are elegant and accomplished, but the Dauphin was the negative side of this with no confidence in himself. Everything he could do was less elegant than his hopes, and so he did nothing."

"Then I am glad Mia is different!" Sora said. She knew what it felt to grow from no confidence to the right amount of confidence. Layla taught her that. When she started she could not hold on to any performance, but Layla gave her confidence as a partner. She became Layla's pride and Layla's joy...she wished to still be Layla's joy, or at least help Layla to feel joy once more.

"That is helpful, Fool," Sora said. "It helps to understand his feelings more."

Farnice was giving Sora a funny look, as if she was confused about why Sora was talking to a voice in the air that nobody else could hear.

"Must practice more!" Sora said. "I have many more lines to rehearse!"

—

"Here's to coffee!" Cathy cheered. "Lots of coffee!"

Layla briefly looked up from her desk and raised her mug. "Thank you for bringing me all I need."

"You should thank me for drinking a whole cup of your coffee!" Cathy said. If Cathy Taymour had one vulnerability, it was caffeine, Layla knew, and so she had tried to exploit this vulnerability by making the coffee on her own.

After that first cup Cathy had ordered some new coffee from a takeout place and made the rest herself into their long night.

"I'm boiling the next jug. Let me know if you need more resources from my room," Cathy said.

"I will." Layla was well into this work now. She was flowing fluidly, like a circus act she had now practiced to perfection.

The time had come in their relationship for her to catch up to Sora now.

—

Since Eugene was reaching for her coat in the coffeeshop, Sora let him take it, feeling awkward. She could not move in social situations like this as effortlessly as Layla did. She looked around.

"Isn't Farnice coming? Clarrie? Or August?" she asked. There was nobody from the play in sight.

"They all canceled," Eugene said. He beckoned to a waiter for menus for both of them. Sora thanked the waiter and sipped her green tea when it arrived. It was one of the nicest kinds of green tea she'd ever had in America. She and Eugene talked about the play. It was always amazing to meet new, interesting people!

Eugene had tap danced ever since he was three and a child prodigy. He was nearly two years younger than Sora, which made her feel almost motherly toward him. He'd used his tap dancing skills to get many roles, but what he really wanted was shows like this. Sora was reminded a little of her friend May Wong, who'd ice skated in her beginning before finding a new dream. Eugene asked Sora what her third major role was, and then she told him all about the Arabian Nights performance and her duel with Layla with swords and diabolo on top of a burning ship with genuine flames. Sora could still remember Layla's strong hand holding her at the end of the scene, and the time they had practiced their fight on a boat in the middle of a storm together.

"And then?" Eugene asked. "Layla went to Off-Broadway, but it's said that Leon Oswald and your other partners became stars because of you."

"They are stars because they are amazing!" Sora said.

"Yes, yes." Eugene flashed her one of his dazzling smiles, as if a sun had decided to personally come down and tell Sora to have an amazing day. "Sora, you're beautiful and a very special person. The truth is, I arranged for you to meet me on your own because I wanted to ask you for a true date. You're single, I'm single. Let's break many hearts and tell them that I'm your boyfriend." His eyes grew soft as melted sugar and he leant across their table, his lips drawing together with a velvety softness.

Sora was frozen in place, then suddenly pushed the table at him.

"You have the wrong idea! I don't...I thought that we were friends!"

"We are friends, Sora," Eugene said. "I'm asking you to also be my girlfriend."

She'd never thought about this. Sora stared at Eugene as if he was a kind of Frankenstein man. To be truthful, this was the first time Sora had heard such a thing being asked her. It was too new and strange!

But the thought of being with Eugene—like a girlfriend—Sora knew that wasn't her choice.

"I don't want to be your girlfriend!" she said loudly. She was embarrassed that she was attracting attention from the other diners now. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I could ever see you in that way," Sora added more softly. She sat down to show that she would still be friends. "Don't worry, you will find many other girls!"

Eugene leaned forward again, but this time it wasn't to do something romantic.

"Are the rumours true?" Eugene said, shaping his voice to gain an edge of sharpness. "Are you gay? There are rumours that you've never been seen dating anyone, even though you've performed with Yuri Killian, Leon Oswald, and Harry Viswanathan. I'd like to think that someday I will be on the same level as them..." Eugene flashed her a very charming smile, then brought his face closer to her to finish. "Do you only like girls, Sora?"

Sora stared at him. "I have no time to date, that's all! Not that there is anything wrong with that. I love that my two friends Mia and Anna are in love. I'll be Mia's bridesmaid when they get married, unless I'm Anna's bridesperson because Marion and Ken's sister Lucy also both want to be bridesmaids and wear pretty dresses..." Sora felt herself flush, although she didn't want to. She loved the Stage, that was all! She certainly couldn't see herself loving Eugene, though she would perform with him.

Why would anyone say that she was gay? There was never anything to be ashamed of any kind of love; it was just a strange thing for someone to say. Sora once had a crush on Yuri, from his posters and his amazing performances with Layla, but it faded after he took over the Kaleido Stage and today they were only good friends. Leon was like a big brother to her, and her other partner lately had been sweet and a good performer and in a very happy relationship with his boyfriend.

"I am busy with the Stage. That's what I love!"

Eugene raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow and smirked. "You're just perfect for playing someone famous for dying a virgin."

"There is nothing wrong with that either!" Sora said. "I'm going now. See you at the play."

She was more angry than she thought she should be as she stormed off. Maybe it was true that Eugene was not a very nice person—but he was doing his best for the play, so it would be wrong to take out her temper on him. Or maybe Sora was angry for reasons that had nothing to do with Eugene's assumptions.

She loved the Stage but she could also fall in love with someone and feel everything that Layla's Juliet felt for Romeo, the love that the Golden Phoenix symbolised when Juliet grasped the last trapeze after her magical spin. She was not the same as Jeanne that way. She could know someone amazing who meant the world to her. She could find someone that she could live with. She would find someone to grow old with together, someone to be with her even when she was a ninety-year-old woman who would still want to do something with a stage...

The streets were very busy and a lot of people bumped into Sora on her way. All the twists and turns on the sidewalks looked the same to her.

If her friend May Wong was here, Sora thought, May would help her. May had been married to Leon Oswald for a year now, keeping her maiden name. She knew some things about this sort of thing. "SORA, DO YOU KNOW WHAT ELEMENT IS THE MOST DENSE ON THE PERIODIC TABLE IN CHEMISTRY? BECAUSE I DO," May would probably say.

"SORA, FOR YOUR INFORMATION, IT'S CERULEANIANUNOBTANIUM. AND YOU ARE ABOUT NINETY TIMES AS DENSE AS IT!" May would explain.

This would, of course, help solve Sora's problems by...she had not entirely thought out why at the moment...

The shove of a woman in a business suit swinging her heavy handbag as she walked past sent Sora crashing into a street sign, which marked a name that was completely unfamiliar to her. Sora looked ruefully up at it. She would certainly find someone she could ask for directions and return to the theatre soon!

—

It was a pale, crisp dawn at the end of a long night. Green streaks decorated the sky outside Layla's window and strings of silver fog began to blow away between the skyscrapers. Layla set down her pen and neatened the desk. She tidied up the history books she had borrowed from Cathy.

Cathy's hand moved sporadically across one of her pocket notebooks, but in actual fact she was simply writing in her sleep. There eventually came a time when one was too old for all-nighters. But Layla relaxed into her chair and smiled at her victory.

A great clamour at the door broke the silence.

"Wazzat? Wasn't asleep! God, get me some more coffee!" Cathy jumped. "What's this shit I've written?"

"Miss, I'm back," Macquarie said. She gasped in horror at the state of the room when she opened the door. "This will all have to be cleaned up immediately! But I have succeeded in my mission, Layla—I have your talisman."

She brandished the white rabbit.

"I remember," Layla said softly, in a shocked voice. She touched the rabbit's soft fur. Macquarie's mother had always helped her keep it as clean as new. "There was a past that we shared. It's fitting to remember it for the future. Are you both ready to come with me?"

Cathy took up a half-empty cup, drained the dregs—and then saluted. "Lead on, cap'n marm."

—

Sora was running through the final scene for the tenth time today. She'd learnt long ago that the last scene in a show was only second in importance to the first: if there was a bad opening, nobody would bother to watch the rest, but if there was a bad ending, then nobody would ever come a second time.

The stage would be made as dark as it could be. Jeanne despaired and confessed everything when captured by her enemies. She once was a saint who won every battle and now she was a human girl.

But also as a human, Jeanne then recanted her confession and chose to die as a martyr. This would give the soldiers of her country to fight for, even though she would feel terrible pain as she died. Humans are afraid of death by fire.

First Jeanne was a saint in battle, then she gave in to despair and became human. In her despair she chose to die in a way that humans fear, and because of her brave death she was made a saint again. To become human was the only way for Jeanne to become a saint.

Sora read the next lines of the script. There was something missing.

"Jeanne needs to forgive," Sora said. "To move beyond bitterness at the end. There could be something...more...?"

"Then what is that?" the director Eyfridur said.

"Jeanne can...reconcile," Sora said. "She is the girl who held a dying soldier from the other side in her arms. She saw the world in black and white, but now she can see into the hearts of everyone. She can forgive and realise, because eventually the English will have more shrines to her bravery than the French. She becomes a saint for everyone who fights. There needs to be a stronger moment, when Jeanne forgives and understands... The one who led her country into the war?"

Sora's eyes were already turned toward the other side of the stage.

Layla was poised and proud and drew every eye to her, sweeping through the benches like a queen. A pressed blue dress floated around her like a cloud, and the look in her eyes glowed with a new inner light. Cathy Taymour walked beside her, and Macquarie came with them.

"I have some changes to the script," Layla said.

—


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you for reviewing, Mynameiseverchanging, neko-rin, and dakari prince-aki. Neko-rin, I think of this story as around four years after the canon, when Sora is about 20 and Layla is about 24. This is the final part.

—

_A woman will betray France and a woman will save France. One woman on one side of the coin from the other, a saint and a queen, their destinies intertwined forever._

There was a woman called Isabeau of Bavaria, Cathy explained from Layla's and her own historical research. Isabeau was said to be the woman who betrayed France and prepared the world for the Maid, because she signed the treaty giving France to the English. She was the mother of the Dauphin and she was also the grandmother of the young King of England, and she gave France away to her grandson and swore her son was illegitimate because she had to protect herself and the people she could. She was said to be polished and beautiful with long golden hair, she loved art and beautiful things, and she had twelve children and a mentally ill husband in real life.

Where Jeanne was fire, Sora thought, Isabeau was water: cool, calm, lovely, and making complicated and difficult choices in complex situations. Jeanne was fire, focused solely on winning battles where the outcomes were clear.

Together, Jeanne and Isabeau must reconcile by the end of the play...

Layla had lost her first role, so she created a new one. Sora beamed with happiness. To think they would be together again! When Layla described her performance, her eyes shone like stars. Sora could not wait to see it and join her.

"There's no time to waste," Cathy said. "We've made changes to the script almost all the way through, and performance is in nineteen days."

—

Now Layla and Sora carried out their stunt: that, in the end, when Jeanne was burned, Isabeau the water would carry her ashes away. They would fly together from the world.

And now Fool appeared before them, shining in golden light.

"I see Isabeau," Fool said, "for Isabeau was a Rooster. She was a deep thinker who always wished to do more than her abilities. She desired elegance and beauty in her surroundings. The dark side to Isabeau's traits is that she was disappointed, but her name lives on through history and her family line continues to this day. It is curious that Layla Hamilton's mother Lola had the French maiden name of Saint-Rémy, the same maiden name as a notorious jewel thief who claimed to be releated to the family line of Isabeau's son...but I know nothing about that.

"Your friend May Wong is also a Rooster, who is always devoted to her work and speaks out when she has something on her mind," he added about May.

"And I see Jeanne, now that your path lies clear before you," Fool said. "Jeanne's year of birth was the year of the Dragon. She was magnificent and strange, a woman unlike any other. She was honest, brave, and loved God and her country. She was clever in strategy and warfare, and a true idealist who followed the voice of her dreams.

"Here Layla is the Dragon, noble and justly proud, glorious and brave. Sora is the Monkey, the matchless daring fool wiling to chase her impossible dream. Together, you are unstoppable.

"Bring Jeanne to life in your show!"

Now Sora and Layla flew.

—

The two stars were called to perform Jeanne and Isabeau before the play's leaders, the three sponsors and the director.

Mrs Karunungan looked at them both. "That nice boy Kenneth warned me that we had two extraordinary performers in you. With Layla—a decent Jeanne. With Sora, it is the right Jeanne. With both, it becomes something new." She tapped her knotted ebony cane approvingly on the ground.

"A redemption of Isabeau's reputation as a historical villain," Madame De Conte said. Today the historical consultant wore a huge black and white hat like the wings of a giant butterfly. "There is support for this. As Jeanne was a miraculous saviour, Isabeau was made to become her opposite. But Isabeau was trying to survive in a difficult time. Both, in the end, caused France to be redeemed."

"It will drive audience demands using our two stars," Hortensia Virgil said. "Our advertisers and the press must know immediately."

Eyfridur the director watched them for some moments more. "I permit the changes," she said. It was enough. Cathy winked at them.

—

It was opening night. Sora and Layla had worked for a long time to accomplish the changes in the script, but it felt like they only gained energy from their work.

"Lucky talisman." Macquarie, already dressed in her costume, reached into Layla's long train and took out a small object and some pins from her bag. "Let me pin this into your costume, just for tonight, for luck! It's Miss Layla's old white rabbit from the Kaleido Stage," she told Sora.

"White rabbit...I remember that," Sora said. "Tweedledum, Alice, the white rabbit!" She went to Macquarie and rubbed the rabbit's fur slowly, trying to remember. "It was such a beautiful day when I went to the Kaleido Stage with my first parents. I caught a white rabbit, it landed in my lap like magic! Alice was so amazing and wonderful. When she disappeared inside the shimmering flower I couldn't believe it!"

Sora touched the white rabbit's head. "There was a big girl who cried...a girl bigger than me, with lovely hair and a green dress like a fairy. She didn't get a rabbit. So I made her smile by giving her one. I was so happy when she took the rabbit. I told her the Japanese words for white rabbit. Shiro usagi, she said."

"Shiro usagi," Layla repeated, a half-second after Sora. She'd said the words with a perfect accent. "I went to that play and later I learnt that you also were inspired by Donna Walker's Alice. Tweedledum missed me, and I was a crybaby back then. Until a tiny little girl who couldn't speak English gave me her own rabbit..."

"...Because a fairy girl with light blonde hair was crying, a girl I looked up to from the start. There you are!" Sora said, suddenly falling on Layla and hugging her. "We have been friends since the very beginning!"

"You'll spoil your costumes," Macquarie reminded them, and the quarter call came over the backstage speakers for the performers. Layla only had time to press Sora's hand warmly before they hastened to the stage.

This was Jeanne d'Arc and her partner!

—

And in the night, after the Stage had gone dark and the cheering audience was home in bed, the only sound that stirred in the theatre was the soft clink of silver trapezes. Layla was too exhilarated to sleep.

She felt all that she had felt when she and Sora were together in the Mystical Act, all wonder and daring and a hope that outlasted death and despair.

Layla knew something new with each performance. She and Sora became all they could be with each other. Both had separate experiences, had learnt to stand on their own. They had come full circle. An alchemical ring closed on them, changing to diamond at last.

"I love you, Sora," Layla said. But she thought that she was alone. Truths were best spoken at night. She dived upward to the next bar with her left hand, the golden phoenix reaching for her love...

She was lifted by something so gentle and light she thought it a ghost of the stage, taking her into the air. Then Sora, unmistakably, stood by her side on the swinging trapeze.

"I know," Sora said.

It began with a kiss.

—

A/N: Some brief notes.

- Ken's sister's name is given as Lucy in the fansub version I have, but a fan wiki says it's Susie.

- The white rabbit + Sora and Layla interaction as children at 'Alice' also occurs in the fic 'A Phoenix Reborn' by LyThi.


End file.
